d seemed to have kicked
the clothes off. Copses, dells, quarries and all hidden places, which
had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed
themselves and their secrets pathetically, and seemed to ask him to
overlook their shabby poverty for a while, till they could riot in rich
masquerade as before, and trick and entice him with the old deceptions.
It was pitiful in a way, and yet cheering--even exhilarating. He was
glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard, and stripped of its
finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine
and strong and simple. He did not want the warm clover and the play of
seeding grasses; the screens of quickset, the billowy drapery of beech
and elm seemed best away; and with great cheerfulness of spirit
he pushed on towards the Wild Wood, which lay before him low and
threatening, like a black reef in some still southern sea.

There was nothing to alarm him at first entry. Twigs crackled under his
feet, logs tripped him, funguses on stumps resembled caricatures, and
startled him for the moment by their likeness to something familiar
and far away; but that was all fun, and exciting. It led him on, and he
penetrated to where the light was less, and trees crouched nearer and
nearer, and holes made ugly mouths at him on either side.

Everything was very still now. The dusk advanced on him steadily,
rapidly, gathering in behind and before; and the light seemed to be
draining away like flood-water.

Then the faces began.

It was over his shoulder, and indistinctly, that he first thought he saw
a face; a little evil wedge-shaped face, looking out at him from a hole.
When he turned and confronted it, the thing had vanished.

He quickened his pace, telling himself cheerfully not to begin imagining
things, or there would be simply no end to it. He passed another hole,
and another, and another; and then--yes!--no!--yes! certainly a little
narrow face, with hard eyes, had flashed up for an instant from a hole,
and was gone. He hesitated--braced himself up for an effort and strode
on. Then suddenly, and as if it had been so all the time, every hole,
far and near, and there were hundreds of them, seemed to possess its
face, coming and going rapidly, all fixing on him glances of malice and
hatred: all hard-eyed and evil and sharp.

If he could only get away from the holes in the banks, he thought,
there would be no more faces. He swung off the path and p